Fighting for her Life

Chapter 18 - Skye

The drive home is extremely quiet; I realize that Jess has questions, but I am emotionally raw and exposed that I do not think I can have this discussion with him.  What if he leaves me?  I have not even told him I love him while he was coherent.  Once we reach my place, we set the food down make our plates and sit in silence waiting for the other to start talking and apparently, he is done waiting.

"Skye, are you going to tell me why I didn't realize you had plans tonight?" I am so grateful this is where he's starting.

"My brother called late last night. You were out of the office all day, I didn't think it was important to interrupt your meeting to tell you I was meeting my brother.

"You could have sent me a text letting me know you were meeting with him, just in case I showed up at your place and you weren't there."

"It was a drink with my brother Jess, you have them with yours all the time!" I am being a b***h and he doesn't deserve it.

"Sweetheart it's not a problem.  I must tell you though, walking into that restaurant and seeing you sit at a table with a guy… I had no idea who he was it did not feel good. Then when I saw you sitting there looking sad, the spark that is usually in those beautiful eyes was gone, it killed me." I have to end this before he asks for more information, I am not prepared to give those answers right now.

"Listen Jess, I'm really tired and not in the best place right now.  I'm going to take a shower and go to bed, maybe it's best if tonight you sleep at your place tonight." As I stand, he stands with me and cups my face with both of his hands looking me in the eye.

"Go shower, I will clean up, after that we are going to go to bed together, okay? I am not leaving because you had a bad day, Skye. We will work through this together whatever this is. I know you're not up to discussing whatever you're feeling right now, but we are going to, just not tonight." With that he picks up our dishes and heads for the kitchen and I had the bathroom to take a shower.

Jess

When I make my way back to the bedroom Skye is already in bed and her eyes are closed pretending to be sleeping.  I get ready for bed, climb in and pull her to me, I hold her and within a few minutes I feel her body relaxing.

"Goodnight Sweetheart." I kiss the top of her head and suddenly I hear her tell me goodnight.

At some point I feel the bed move violently, Skye is trashing beside me, she is clearly having a bad dream.  I wait to see if this has anything to do with tonight and that is when I hear her clear as day.

"Tommy get off me please you know I'm not ready!"

"Mason, you need to help me! I told Tommy I was ready, and he didn't listen to me Mason please!"

"I did Mason I promise, I was truly clear he knew I didn't."

I sit there, my heart is breaking, and I can't take this anymore. I go to wake up my girl. We need to talk about this now, I wipe the tears that are actually falling from her eyes as she sleeps.

"Wake up Sweetheart. I have you. Open those beautiful eyes and look at me." suddenly Skye jumps up, and she is looking at me with wide eyes

"Hey it was a bad dream, I have you." As I reach out, she pulls back for a minute like, she is still trying to figure out what was happening.  Once she is fully alert, she stares at me and then smiles like the dream never happened and that is not working for me.

"Sweetheart that was some bad dream, want to talk about it?" I question as I wrap her up in my arms.

"I actually don't remember; I know I was scared but once I woke up the dream was gone." She is not looking at me so I know she's lying; I can no longer take it and I completely lose my temper, jumping up from the bed.

"Look at me Skye!" When she lifts her head, I repeat my question with a little of a bite in my tone daring her to lie to me again.

"What was the dream about Skye?" I wait for her to answer and send a silent prayer that she is honest with me this time.

"I told you I don't remember Jess, come back to bed its late." At her words my world falls, I cannot do this with her anymore.  I start pacing the room, I feel like a caged animal and suddenly I lose whatever self-control I had left.

"I'm not my brother Skye! I am not Johnny, who will pretend he didn't pick up on what the dream is about, which is the exact same dream you just had now. I waited fo-"

"GET. OUT. NOW... RIGHT. NOW!" I stand there for a minute, realize what I just spoke out loud and the expression on her face is too much.

"Sweetheart, please let me explain," I approach the bed.

"Don't touch me Jess, please leave!"

Skye

Once Jess is gone, I replay his words "I'm not my brother Skye! I'm not Johnny", Johnny is Jess' brother. Every time I confided in Johnny and he gave me his take on things it was to help Jess land the girl.  I feel so stupid to think Johnny was my friend, I thought of him as more than a friend he was family to me.  With that thought repeating in my head, I cannot stop the laughter that comes out of my mouth.  I am such a fool.

I make my way to the bathroom I need to go for a run to clear my head.  As I pound the pavement, my mind replays everything, I cannot believe I didn't make the connection between Jess and Johnny. Did I even know Johnny's last name?  If Johnny knew I was with his brother, why did he keep asking me for his name?  Did he want to tell me? Is that why he asked for a name? Is that why Johnny has looking so stressed lately? How long has he known? Then there's Jess.  I let him in, I let my walls down, he made me feel so much cherished and loved. Was any of what we had real?  Was our relationship one sided? Was I just a game? If so, what did Jess get out of it?  As my brain is working hard to turn up the answers to all these questions, I feel a tear run down my face I loved Jess so much. In one sentence he didn't only manage to break my heart, but he managed to break me completely.  Needing to turn off my brain, clear my head and figure out where I go from here.  I put my earbuds in my ears, Gwen Stefani is the perfect person to listen to, she knows a lot about betrayal and heartbreak.

After I run 5 miles, I am just approaching my place and I am still worked up. I have told myself plenty of times now how stupid I am for trusting Johnny, for falling in love with Jess.

Entering my door, I decide that I need to make a lot of changes in my life. I pull up my laptop and start looking for a new trainer, once I email my top two picks I move onto new employment, I send Taylor a quick email asking if she is still interested in hiring someone. 

At five in the morning my phone starts ringing, I am shocked when I see Taylor's name pop up.

"Hey Taylor, why are you up at this hour?" I try to make light of the conversation.

"Well one can ask the same of you.  Is something going on or is that email something to discuss for another time?"

"Definitely another time.  So, are you still interested in hiring someone in-house for your marketing?" I cut to the point I cannot go back to the office and see Jess.

"Well yes but as you know we still have a little over a month with Royal Marketing."

"Right of course." I feel a little deflated by her response, but I should have known that Customz was still committed to Jess.

"Did you have someone in mind for the position?"

"Yeah me if you’re interested, of course it wouldn't be until your contract is done."

"Did something happen at Royal Marketing I should know about Skye?"

"No Taylor, Royal Marketing is still doing really well but I need a change."

"Okay, I will have our people draw up some paperwork, take a glimpse at them, make sure this is what you really want and then we can meet up to discuss this in greater detail."

"Perfect thank you." Once we say our goodbyes, I check my emails and notice one of the gym trainers has responded, I email him back letting him know I could be there in a couple of hours.  After I am showered, I still feel like I need to do something. I know what it is, so I grab my keys and head out for the gym to clear my locker.

Jess

After I left Skye, I just drove around replaying everything, and how I completely f****d this up.  I checked the time and decided I needed to talk to Johnny and let him know what happened, he is going to f*****g kill me.  I pulled up to his place, knock on the door, when he didn’t answer I realized he's probably still in bed, so I banged on the door until he opened up.

"What the f**k!" Johnny yells as he clears his eyes and then looks at me, he must see something in my appearance and opens the door more to let me in.

"What happened? What did you do Jess?" His tone was sharp and clipped.

"I messed up BIG this time, I lost her because I couldn't control my mouth." Johnny sits next to me and waits for me to continue.  I told him about seeing her at the restaurant, meeting her brother and the asshole Tommy, how she had the bad dream and what I heard.  I paused and looked at my brother's face.

"Okay not so bad, she was just trying to cover up her dream."

"No man, I yelled at her when she claimed she didn't remember the dream, I told her I wasn't you and wouldn’t pretend I didn't hear what she said in her dream.  She knows you’re my brother." Johnny jumped to his feet and is looking at me like he didn’t hear me correctly.

"I'm sorry man."

"You're sorry! That is what you have to say? You realize not even her love for you is going to get her back?  We betrayed her trust you asshole! In one sweep not only did you lose her, but I f*****g lost her too!"

"I cannot lose her.  I need her in my life she is everything, and I didn’t even tell her how much I love her."

"I got nothing for you, I can’t even believe you are so full of yourself that you came here for my help and to ease your quilt.  You f****d this up, and we both lost her." Johnny walks away and heads to his room, he comes back dressed, grabs his keys.

"I need to head to the gym I call you later." As he reaches the door, he turns to me; "Give her space to clear her head, don’t make this worse and hopefully she comes to the gym this morning." With that he closes the door and I hear him pull out of the driveway. I pull out my phone and send Skye a text:

We need to talk, please call me!

I wait with my phone in my hand when I still have no response, I call her, and it goes straight to voicemail and I leave her a message.

"Skye Sweetheart call me please."

I wait.  I guess at some point while I was waiting for Skye to call back exhaustion hit, and I fell asleep completely drained from everything that is happening.

Skye

I park my bike in front of the gym, glance around for Johnny's car and sigh in relief when I don’t see it.  I head in and see the morning guy that opens up I walk by him and tell him to cancel my standing appointments with Johnny.  Before he can respond I walk to the changing room to grab my stuff as I walk out of the changing room Johnny is talking to the guy at the front.  As if he can sense me his head turn to me.

"Skye" he whispers.

"You knew all along and played me. I trusted you and you played me.  Shame on me." The tears are starting to well up, I refuse to let them fall and let him see more of my hurt.  I pass him to leave, he grabs my hand.  I can feel the anger now taking over my body.  "Take your hands off me!" I pull away from him.

"Skye let me explain.  It is not what you think, I realize how-" no, no, he is not.

"No Johnny it is not.  I thought of you more than just a friend, I thought of you as a brother.  I actually remember telling you that, funny thing is you are exactly like my brother!" With that said I turn and leave.

When I get home, I sit at the table by my laptop and mentally checking things off my “need a new life” list and notice the job offer from Taylor which I will read after.  The guy I met at the new gym is good, we entered the ring to see if we worked well together, he pushed me hard and I pushed back harder.  I signed a three-month trial, now I only have one more thing to do so I pull up my email.

Dear Mr. Royal,

Please note that effective immediately I will no longer be working for Royal Marketing.

Skye Anderson

Closing my laptop, I head for the shower.